This weekend I attended and presented at DBU’s annual academic conference. I love this conference. I go every year (that I’m in the country), and it’s always a lovely family reunion with all of my favorite professors and former classmates, as well as a source of alma mater pride as I interact with current students’ papers.

The theme of this year’s keynote lectures was “Tolle Lege ‘Pick Up and Read’: On Books and Reading,” presented by the wonderfully engaging Byron Borges who owns the kind of bookstore I wish I had in my community. Fortunately, they sell online!

Over at Hearts & Minds Books, Byron keeps a wonderful blog (mostly about books and brief book recommendations), where you can find his most recent post about his stay in Texas including highlights of the conference, highlights from each of his three lectures, which were great, and of course, the book recommendations he gave during his talks. (I should have known… so much needless, frantic scribbling.)

So, since my weekend was about books and reading, I was going to ask about favorite books, but then I thought, I don’t want to ask another ‘favorites’ question back-to-back like that… But, I should have. Because in delaying in order to think of a better question, I forgot entirely!

So, without further ado, what have been some spiritually influential fiction and non-fiction in your life? Or… favorite books in general… I ❤ books.

Les Miserables – I think everyone should read this book. Why don’t we? It’s better than any of the other “classics” we read in school, and has more to offer than a period story wherein a pretty girl gets married. (Fans of the musical who have not read the book won’t understand what I’m talking about. The musical completely throws off the religious themes of the book, too. Ugh…)

“One Fish, Two Fish” by Dr. Suess. Elementary? Yes. My mom jokes to this day that my dad can recite this text instantaneously upon request. Why? As little kids, both my parents spent countless hours reading to my siblings and me. They patiently reread the same books over and over again until we could read and reread on our own. As a result they instilled in all three of their kids a voracious appetite for the written word. Of course, I’ve moved on to weightier tomes since “One Fish,” however, I still enjoy a great “children’s” book de temps en temp. Don’t even get me started on how great Graham Oakley’s Church Mice series is!!http://www.ils.unc.edu/~david/oakley/

Thanks for the link! I’d never heard of this series; it sounds delightful. Of course, you know I love good (children’s) lit. Oh the Places You’ll Go! was the best grad book I got. Way better than Max Lucado’s (not that his wasn’t helpful too in it’s own way).